Endbringers
The Endbringers 'are monstrous beings that take turn attacking locations around the globe to cause as much damage as they possibly can. Apparently unkillable, the Endbringers retreat to their respective domains to heal after they have sustained sufficient damage, only to attack again months later. Biology According to Tattletale’s power, the Endbringers were never human and have no vulnerable organs. Rather, the Endbringers appear to be made out some type of a crystalline material. In addition, they consist of about 200 layers in the main body and 33 in the limbs, each one approximately twice as hard as the previous one. These layers surround its core, the only part of its body that is actually vital. An Endbringer's skin is "hard as aluminum alloy, but flexible"; and it's strength, toughness, and healing factor increase exponentially. 3% deeper in toward core of arms, legs, claws, tail, or .5% in toward core of head, trunk, neck, tissues are hard as steel. The tensile strength of the material roughly doubles with each layer, every 0.5% of the way towards the center of his body and every 3% of the way toward the center of their extremities; Wildbow has confirmed Wildbow on redditWildbow on reddit (again) that "extremities would take 30 trillion atmospheres of pressure to damage." The core of an Endbringer would require around five hundred and sixty novemdecilliondefinition of novemdecillion MPa of pressure; in practice, only parahumans capable of breaking the laws of physics can seriously harm an Endbringer.Who would Win?:JLA vs. Endbringers However, a concentrated attack with enough force to destroy the surface of a planet would be sufficient at killing an Endbringer in one shot.'The whole "planet-busting beam" was a translation error. All it really meant was that it would destroy all life on the surface. Punch that counters said beam & strikes like that one did is still good enough. - Wildbow Comment on Reddit While even an attack of that magnitude would not destroy all layers of the Endbringer body, enough energy to obliterate it instantly would be transmitted into the core, resulting in a 'definite kill'. In theory String Theory's Driver weapons pose a significant threat to the Endbringers. As a consequence they carefully plan their appearances as to eliminate any possibility of facing her in combat.Not going to happen in any incarnation of the Wormverse, or Behemoth would be built stronger to counteract (Or, as in the case of String Theory, Endbringer cooperation/timing would keep her from ever being able to set up a proper hit). - Wildbow Comment on Reddit Due to their density, Endbringers are immune to most teleporters. They count as living matter for the purposes of the Manton Effect.He can’t be teleported. Too dense for most people who teleport living things. - Discussion on Extermination 8.4Discussion on Extermination 8.4Endbringer cores employ space-warping that interferes with some powers.Wildbow on reddit yet again When they take damage they leak a thick ichor-like substance, suggesting a non-standard cardiac system. Their nervous system is also foreign enough to prevent body control powers from working. They regenerate quickly as well, even in the middle of a battle. The deeper layers regenerate faster because the material from the intact layers expands to fill in any damaged or missing areas. "The outer shell, the concept, the execution, they’re tapping into religious metaphors. The devil, the serpent, the angel, buddha, mother earth, the maiden, each connected in turn to fundamental forces. Flame, water, fate, time, earth, the self. Things deep-seated and fundamental to their creator’s belief system, because that’s how the passengers interpret our world. Through us. But deep down? Beyond that surface, beyond the basic programming that drives them to do what they’ve been doing for thirty years? It’s the passenger’s brush strokes" -Tattletale on the Endbringers Cockroaches 28.4 Timeline Impact The Endbringers killed numerous people and wiped out several notable heroes. This removed potential and luminaries leaders and idealistic parahumans willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Possibly leading to a more cynical population. They have caused demographic and poloitical shifts and environmental degradation on a scale not seen outside natural disasters.Fantastic question, and one I’m not sure I can give a fantastic answer to. Why is that? Well, primarily, there’s the issue of trying to quantify ‘damage’. As stated in Legend’s pre-battle speech (early in arc 8) there’s almost always grievous losses but they aren’t always the same sort of losses. You have the events that left the world reeling: Lausanne, Hawaii, Kyushu, Newfoundland, Moscow, Sydney. The attacks that left major areas uninhabitable or unrecoverable, with wide-reaching effects on the rest of the country/region/world. In this setting, for example, Japan isn’t a world power and it’s still dependent on international assistance 12 years after Leviathan’s visit to Kyushu. But even there, where do you say, “Ok, that’s the sum total of the damage done”? The disaster at Kyushu, the number of refugees seeking living space/work and the pressures on the rest of Asia’s pacific border might have led to some more unrest and tension. Some friction, some ‘small’ wars, infighting and intermingling. Refugees and immigrants. Many settle in major cities across America because President Bradley’s Preservation Act gives them a hand in getting on their feet. Do you factor that last point into the damage as well? Lung comes to Brockton Bay in part because of the booming population of Asian immigrants (which hasn’t yet set down roots). Bakuda was born to a Westerner mother and Immigrant father. Do you count the damage they’ve done? Ditto for Mannequin and the Simurgh. But that’s only the major hits, the broad strokes of the brush and all the repercussions/spatter that follows from that. Attacks end in other ways, for example. Legend mentions mass loss of life. There’s economic damage that follows from that, disease and explosions in the population of vermin when a quarter million people die in a concentrated area. There’s the deaths of countless heroes, and how that biases things further towards the general villain population. If the selfless throw their lives away for the greater good and it’s primarily the selfish (or the very powerful) who are left, how does that skew things? And I should stress that weak points aren’t necessarily just areas which are geographically vulnerable. There’s places where there’s ongoing conflict (like we might point to the middle east over the past decade), places where it takes little effort on the part of the Endbringer to deal maximum devastation (ie. a nuclear power plant, military bases) and spots where a great many resources are invested (be they great minds collected in one place or major projects like Dr. Gramme’s major projects in trying to save the world). Did anyone else catch the mention of the water crisis? Leviathan isn’t always attacking cities, and the world has only so much accessible freshwater. I digress. To answer your question in the general sense? Relatively few places have been hit as hard as the major examples listed above. But figure this has been going on for 20ish years. Behemoth shows up in the early 90’s, attacking once a year, roughly (twice in 1994), Leviathan shows up in the mid 90’s (now we’re up to 2-3 Endbringer attacks a year), and Simurgh comes in just after the turn of the century (now 3-4). I mentioned in a comment during the Endbringer arc, but I said something like ‘Behemoth is the cape-killer and Leviathan levels cities’. Figure each Endbringer has attacked 16 to 20 times so far, account for the bias towards killing capes (Behemoth) vs. wiping out landscapes (Leviathan) and that Brockton Bay is pretty middle-of-the-road for the kind of aftermath you see, and maybe you can make an estimate. Ballparking it? 8 or 9 Endbringer attacks in America over 20 years. - Comment by Wildbow on Colony 15.5 Conversely without the Endbringers there would be fewer parahumans than there would otherwise be. Because of the endbringers and their attack patterns over being stationary targets and occasional attackers as originally planned, The Fallen rose. Thanks to their coordination with each other the Endbringers are able to maximize their impact. Known Endbringers Origins Had Cauldron ceased to exist soon after killing Eden, the Endbringers would not have existed.Assuming that Cauldron's operatives maybe killed Eden but then just sat on their hands/died, the Endbringers don't exist, the cauldron vials aren't spread out, and there's less of the really powerful parahumans here and there who're capable of acting decisively. - Wildbow on Spacebattles They began "acting funny" after Eidolon's death, and Tattletale speculated that he may have created them, possibly as an excuse to "flex his abilities to their fullest"."Let's face the facts, Simurgh. Ziz. Israfel. Ulama. Whatever you want to go by. You started acting funny pretty much right away, after Eidolon bit it. Maybe that's mourning. Maybe you respected him as an enemy, 'cause he was one of only two individuals who could really give you guys a run for your money. Or maybe you had a different relationship." Tattletale let the words hang in the air. "Maybe a parent-child relationship? Maybe he created you. ... loneliness breeds the best masters, and it's awfully lonely at the top," Tattletale said. "Nobody that can really put up a fight, no excuse to flex his abilities to their fullest, nothing that can really give the man any real stature, next to Legend, who had all the face time with the media. No real role to play, compared to Alexandria, who was managing the PRT. Odd man out." - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4 She was 60% sure of this."He's really their creator?" Defiant asked. "Eidolon?" "…Sixty percent sure. Eidolon's some kind of exception, on a lot of levels. His power works by different vectors, the innate limits aren't there… something broke, and I'm betting the Endbringers are tied to it. Like, this entity is fissioning off into countless fragments that impregnate hosts and somehow a little extra gets tacked on. Or Cauldron's method of replicating the fragments gets that little extra." - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4 Fanart Gallery endbringers_by_imskeptical-d8vadoc.jpg|Iage by ImSkepticap on DeviantAt worm___endbringer_leviathan_by_sandara-d9yuupd.jpg|''Leviathan by sandara on Deviantart''|link=http://sandara.deviantart.com/art/Worm-Endbringer-Leviathan-602742001 Behemoth.jpg|Behemoth V Eidolon by sandara on Deviantart|link=http://sandara.deviantart.com/art/Worm-Endbringer-Behemoth-582896539 worm___the_simurgh_by_sandara-d9nzjkl.jpg|The Simurgh by sandara on Deviantart|link=http://sandara.deviantart.com/art/Worm-The-Simurgh-584485077 Trivia * A Popular Fan Theory among some of the Worm fandom is that the Endbringers were once Parahumans, who either snapped or couldn’t handle their powers, gotten out of control, transformed into gigantic monstrosities. With the full reveal of their origins this theory has been relegated to fanficton. Category:Endbringers Category:S-class threats Category:Groups and Organizations Category:Villains Category:Terminology